Thurston House by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online

name and didn't want to ask him. He didn't really need to know, and he knew whose child he was. The father was one of his most trusted workers at the mines, a man who had nine other children, and most of them were girls, as Jeremiah recalled. This boy was one of three that worked at Thurston mines, and he was the youngest.
    The boy shrugged in answer to Jeremiah's question about girls. Most of them are dumb. I've got seven sisters, and most of them are just plain stupid. Jeremiah laughed at the answer.
    Not all women are stupid. Believe me, boy, a lot fewer of them are than we'd like to think. A lot fewer! He laughed out loud and drew hard on the cigar. There was certainly nothing stupid about Hannah, or Mary Ellen, or most of the other women he knew. In fact, they were even smart about covering up just how smart they were. He liked that in a woman, a pretense of helplessness and simplicity, when in fact there was a razor-sharp mind beneath. It amused him to play the game. And then suddenly he realized that maybe that was why he had never really wanted to marry Mary Ellen. She didn't really play the game. She was direct and straightforward and loving and sensual as hell, but there was no mystery about her. He knew exactly what he was getting, you knew just how bright she was and no more ' there was no guesswork, no discovery, no tiny sparring matches concealed beneath lace, and that had always been something that intrigued him. At least in recent years he seemed to like more complexity than he once had and wondered if it was a sign of old age. The thought amused him.
    He looked over at the boy again, with a knowing smile. There's nothing as pretty as a pretty woman, boy, and then he laughed again, except maybe a rolling green hill with a field of wild flowers on it. He was looking at one now, and it tore at his heart as they drove past it. He hated leaving this land to go east. There would be a piece missing from his life, from his soul, until he returned here. Do you like the land, son?
    The boy looked unimpressed, not sure what he meant, and then decided to play it safe. He had been brazen enough for one morning, and now he had the promise of Saturday mornings to protect. Yes. But Jeremiah knew from the empty way he said the word that he understood nothing of what Jeremiah meant ' the land ' the soil ' he still remembered the thrill that used to run through him at the boy's age as he picked up a handful of soil and squeezed it in his hand' . That's yours, son, yours ' all of it' take good care of it always. ' His father's voice echoed in his ears. It had started with something so small, and had grown. He had added and improved and now he owned vast lands in a valley he loved. That had to be born into your soul, bred into you, it wasn't something you acquired later. It fascinated him that it was something not all men had, but he had known for years that they didn't. And it was something that women had not at all. They never understood that passion for a pile of dirt as one of them had called it. They never knew, nor did the boy who rode along beside him, but Jeremiah didn't mind. One day the boy probably would go to work in a bank, and be happy playing with papers and sums for the rest of his life. There was nothing wrong with that. But if Jeremiah had his way, he'd have tilled the soil for a lifetime, wandered through his vineyards, worked in his mines, and gone home bone tired at night, but content to the very core of his being. The business end of things interested him far less than the natural beauty and the manual labor it required to maintain it.
    It was almost noon when they arrived in Napa, passing the farms on the outskirts first, and then the elaborate homes on Pine and Coombs streets with their well-manicured lawns, and perfectly trimmed trees surrounding large, handsome homes that were not unlike Jeremiah's house in St. Helena. The difference was that Jeremiah's house looked unloved and unused, it was a bachelor's